In Los Gatos 95030 and 95032 (*not the mountains, not Monte Sereno, not San Jose on the LG border) it is close to a balanced real estate market overall with about 5 months of inventory. Six months is considered balanced by the National Association of Realtors.
But most houses don't have a market which is exactly like the "overall" market. Bank owned homes and short sales are selling best - it should be noted that there are not many of them! Next are regular sales in entry level to moderate price ranges. As the price climbs, so does the months of inventory or absorption rate for the Los Gatos real estate market. Worst of all would be short sales priced at over $3,000,000 - they are not moving at all!
We could further fine tune it by lot size, school district, proximity to town etc. Often the hottest segmant of the market are the entry level homes with the best schools. We didn't tease that out here today.... Schools are a big deal in Los Gatos, but some of it may be proximity to downtown rather than just the API scores since 1/3 of the kids in town attend private schools. (The town of Los Gatos encompasses about 10 square miles. The farthest neighborhoods from downtown LG are about 4-5 miles and 15 or 20 minutes driving time at the worst, if one hits all red lights.)
For information on your neighborhood's market conditions, please contact me!
Guest article by Barbara Dodson, resident of Marchmont Drive in Los Gatos
People in the neighborhood around Hillbrook School are worried. And with good reason. Hillbrook, a private school at the end of Marchmont Drive, will be asking the Town to allow an almost 32% increase in its enrollment—from 315 to 414 students. Most of the increase would occur in the middle school.
Hillbrook has created traffic problems in the neighborhood for years. Local streets, which include upper and lower Marchmont,Hilow, Topping, Cardinal, Robin, Stonybrook, Englewood, Shannon, and Kennedy, already face serious traffic problems, a large number of them generated by Hillbrook. And traffic is worst just when everyone is going to school—Hillbrook children heading to and from Hillbrook and neighborhood children walking and biking to and from Blossom Hill Elementary, Van Meter Elementary, and Fisher Middle School.Add to this the fact that none of the streets have sidewalks or bike lanes and some have blind curves and you have a recipe for disaster.
We are very concerned about the safety of our children. Hillbrook has no response to this, and what response could they have? Over the years, we have asked for reductions in traffic. Hillbrook’s answer is this increase.
Hillbrook’s planned expansion is part of a five-year strategic plan, which has been approached as if the school exists in a vacuum and can do anything it wants. In fact, the school is tucked into a residential community with only one access road in and out. The only way for parents to take their children to Hillbrook is through our completely residential neighborhood with streets all flowing into this single access road. There is no access from the main streets of Kennedy and Shannon. The lack of access provides an obvious limit to growth.
Hillbrook claims it needs to expand so it can offer more sports programs and other activities. But there are innumerable opportunities for Hillbrook students to play almost any sport you can imagine. Hillbrook students have done this for decades, and thrived.
Here are some additional thoughts on this issue:
·The Hillbrook expansion has no benefits for the town. Hillbrook is a nonprofit, and, thus , pays no taxes. There is no upside for Los Gatos residents. All we get is traffic, noise, pollution, and dangerous conditions for our children.
·Hillbrook enlarged its facilities under a 2001 Conditional Use Permit (CUP). In 2001, neighbors worried the school was seeking to enlarging the campus so that it could have more students. Time after time, the Head of School insisted that the school had never asked for an increase beyond 315 students. Permission to increase facilities was contingent on no enrollment increase. Hillbrook’s current actions amount to a breach of faith.
·Hillbrook is proposing most of its growth for its middle school. An increase at the middle school level will bring not only an increase in the number of cars dropping off and picking up children. It will also create more traffic with after-school and evening events.
·Hillbrook continually indicates that it encourages carpooling, and we can see some carpooling. However, this has not solved the problem in the past. There is no reason to expect it will solve the problem in the future.
·Most of Hillbrook’s students do not live in Los Gatos. Cars come from out of town, adding to the town’s overall traffic problems.
·Hillbrook has frequently violated the current CUP. For example, last summer Hillbrook allowed a private camp to use its facilities. The head of school said that at least 900 children were enrolled in summer programs. Under the CUP, Hillbrook is not allowed to rent or lease its facilities, nor can it have more than 315 children on site. Given this and other violations, there is no reason to trust that Hillbrook will adhere to a new CUP.
On January 1st, 2012, the city of San Jose banned plastic bags and free paper bags at grocery stores. Los Gatos and Monte Sereno appear poised to follow suit.
"The West Valley Solid Waste Management Authority, which represents Los Gatos, Saratoga, Campbell and Monte Sereno, will meet on Feb. 2 at 5 p.m. to discuss the paper/plastic bag issue."
Things are winding to a close with the transition from the old Los Gatos Public Library to the newly constructed one. If you drive over to the area, you'll see the construction zone taping and fences still in place ("hard hat area" advisories present but people wandering about without hard hats). Inside, the lights are on and people are working hard to set the books into place for the grand opening, which will be February 11th, 2012, at 10am and with events continuing through the weekend.
In the past, home buyers wanting to know about the elementary, middle and high schools and their boundaries had to visit a couple of sites to track down the attendance area (or in some cases, phone the district) and do a separate search to find out the API scores for each one. Particularly for folks interested in purchasing a house, townhouse or condo in Los Gatos, the school boundaries can be confusing and it may be unclear whether the property is in the Los Gatos Union School District, the Union School District, the Campbell Union High School District etc.
No more - enter SchoolAndHousing.com, a new website that mashes up the school boundaries and API scores so you only need to visit this one website, enter an address and get the information. Alternatively, you can search listed homes for sale (where the seller and broker have permitted IDX searches on non-MLS websites) either by API score or by school boundary. This is primarily for Silicon Valley and areas nearby, but it's growing.
Check it out - play with the various features - you don't have to register and you don't have to pay to use it.
They are adding more features to the site and improving it all the time and recently have included private schools (sorry, no scores - there isn't an easy way to score them), daycare etc. SchoolAndHousing also has their own scoring system, on a scale of 1 to 10, to locate a residence. Another neat feature they've added recently is a "compare houses" page too. Pull it up on your cell or mobile device and learn about the schools for a house you're at right then and there with the "current location" button after you select public schools (this works for most cell phones). Right now the listings feed comes from Oodle.com but it's hoped to pull directly from our MLS soon.
Disclaimer: I like this site well enough that I'm advertising for several zip codes, which is something I seldom do as most of my web traffic is organic, meaning it's generated not by ads but by the content I write myself on my various blogs and websites.
The Los Gatos Community Concert Association is partway through its 64th season, again bringing delightful music to our town from fall through spring. One concert was presented in late October but three more are still ahead:
January 22nd, Hector Olivera, Organist
March 25,Evan Marshall, Mandolinist
April 23, Chris Burton Jacome Ensemble, Flamenco Guitarist
All performances are at Los Gatos High School. Fore more info on musicians, times, ticket pricing, discounts for seniors and students, as well as subscription pricing, please see the LGCCA website.
How are housing sales in Los Gatos? Let's have a look - info care of MLSListings.com.The numbers below are for appx the last year, not just last month.
Average Days on Market & Sale to List Price Ratio in Los Gatos
Date is between Jan 2011 and Dec 2011
Property Sub Class is 'Single Family Residential'
Results calculated from approximately 370 listings
Los Gatos listings by price range:
Los Gatos home sales by price range
The Real Estate Report with December's sales stats will be updated in a few days....
November 2011 sales stats for houses and duet homes from my REReport (click for more info and full report):
Sales fell 8.7% from the month before, and were up 10.5% year-over-year. Prices improved in Nov 2011 with the median price climbing 5.6% from the previous month, up 6.5% compared to last year. The average price rose 27.6%, a yearly gain of 43.2%. Inventory fell 13.3% from last month, and was down 24.4% year-over-year.
Trends At a Glance
Nov 2011
Previous Month
Year-over Year
Median Price
$1,225,000
$1,160,000 (+5.6%)
$1,150,000 (+6.5%)
Average Price
$1,859,980
$1,458,140 (+27.6%)
$1,299,320 (+43.2%)
No. of Sales
21
23 (-8.7%)
19 (+10.5%)
Pending Properties
46
55 (-16.4%)
48 (-4.2%)
Active
84
95 (-11.6%)
124 (-32.3%)
Sale vs. List Price
95.6%
96.5% (-0.9%)
94.5% (+1.2%)
Days on Market
51
49 (+4.2%)
75 (-31.9%)
For Los Gatos condominiums and townhomes, sales fell 50% from the month before, and were down 37.5% year-over-year. Prices slipped in Nov 2011 with the median price dipping 27.1% from the previous month, down 19.5% compared to last year. The average price fell 28.7%, a yearly loss of 11%. Inventory fell 3.7% from last month, and was up 8.3% year-over-year.
Trends At a Glance
Nov 2011
Previous Month
Year-over Year
Median Price
$450,000
$617,500 (-27.1%)
$559,000 (-19.5%)
Average Price
$470,000
$659,150 (-28.7%)
$527,988 (-11.0%)
No. of Sales
5
10 (-50.0%)
8 (-37.5%)
Pending Properties
13
12 (+8.3%)
10 (+30.0%)
Active
39
42 (-7.1%)
38 (+2.6%)
Sale vs. List Price
98.1%
98.1% (-0.1%)
99.0% (-0.9%)
Days on Market
67
116 (-41.9%)
38 (+78.0%)
Very, very few of the available Los Gatos real estate consists of distressed properties (short sales, REOs) - depending on the area and price point, there could be more or less, but overall right now it's about 10% of the market.
Homes in the Los Gatos Mountains continue to see a tough buyers' market but prices are rising, at least. Sales fell 40% from the month before, and were the same as one year ago. Prices improved in Nov 2011 with the median price climbing 31.8% from the previous month, up 57.6% compared to last year. The average price rose 43.3%, a yearly gain of 60.5%. Inventory fell 20.5% from last month, and was down 37.5% year-over-year.
There is not much info on this popular lights festival event just yet but here's some basic info on what to expect (subject to change when the Santa Clara County Parks Dept updates their page for the 2011 show):
When: The Fantasy of Lights runs from November 25 to December 31, 2011, 6 - 10pm nightly.
Where: Vasona Lake County Park, 333 Blossom Hill Road (near University Avenue), Los Gatos
How much: The cost varies. For the best deal, get early bird tickets!
$10- per Vehicle (up to 9 guests) Friday, Nov. 25 through Thursday, Dec. 8 ONLY
$15- per Vehicle starting Friday, December 9
$25- per Vehicle 10-25 guests (no discounts)
$50- Commercial buses (no discounts)
Please visit Live in Los Gatos for year round events, neighborhood information, photos around the town, interesting real estate market data, haunted places and even some historical tidbits.
Los Gatos is a wonderful place to visit during the holidays, but it's also a great place to live year round! If you are interested in buying a home in Los Gatos (or selling one), please contact me, Mary Pope-Handy. I'm both a Realtor in town and a resident myself, working full time in helping nice folks to buy & sell homes here and throughout the west valley.
Jim and I got there at around 5 and stayed for about an hour, checking out the very cool decor, trying the free appetizers (I loved the pulled pork - and normally this is a dish I don't even like!) and chatting with some friends we bumped into there. The mood was really wonderfully upbeat - it was like a reunion!
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Below - older updates on this ongoing story.
According to the Merc, The Cats is slated to open December 10, 2011. Check out the article, but do it soon - the SJ Mercury News tends to take its articles offline within about 2 weeks: http://www.mercurynews.com/los-gatos/ci_19335922
Many thanks to J.B. Hanselman, who commented on this post to alert us to the imminent reopening of the beloved Cats Restaurant! There's a new website, which says they are reopening the summer of 2011. You can check it out and read up on it there:
The Cats Restaurant in Los Gatos appears to have work going on, and there are high hopes that it will open again in spring, according to an article in the Los Gatos Weekly Times and San Jose Mercury News.
About four years ago, The historic Cats Restaurant in Los Gatos quickly and quietly closed without much warning (see article in the Los Gatos Observer). One of the area's older buildings, it was constructed as a stage coach stop in the late 1800s, possibly around 1896.
In 2008 I was near the tavern, photographing Leo and Leona at the entrance to Poet's Canyon just steps away, and popped by old building to see what was going on with it.
To my surprise, it appeared that The Cats was being made ready to reopen. There were several trucks and workers in view and the parking lot sported new blacktop and parking stripes.
I could not find any news about a reopening, and apparently there were issues with permits.
The Cats has served many functions over the years and is an area landmark. It would be great to see it open again.
The Cats Restaurant is located at 17533 Santa Cruz Highway, just past the downtown entrance to the freeway from South Santa Cruz Avenue.
Leo and Leona can be seen from this freeway exit too. For more on the two concrete cats, please visit this earlier post: How did Los Gatos get its cat logo?
Silicon Valley holiday shoppers will be happy to know that the time-limited parking lots in downtown Los Gatos are enjoying extended times (4 hours rather than 3) and valet parking to make the excursion even more fun. The normal schedule returns on January 2, 2012. (The lots without time limits will remain that way too.)
Enter the valet lot at Elm Street between N. Santa Cruz Avenue and University Avenue and don't worry about how long you park (as long as you make arrangements for your keys if you plan to stay past 9 PM when the valets go off duty).
These will both make it more enjoyable to shop, browse, and dine in downtown Los Gatos. Hope to see you there - Happy Holidays!
A blog about Los Gatos real estate, homes, houses, condos, townhomes, housing market, neightborhoods, history, events, businesses, parks, schools, photos, issues, and lifestyle by Mary Pope-Handy, town resident, enthusiast and Realtor.
Mary Pope-Handy
Realtor, CRS, ABR, E-Pro
Sereno Group Real Estate
214 Los Gatos-Saratoga Road Los Gatos, CA 95030
DRE # 01153805
408 204-7673
People in the neighborhood around Hillbrook School are worried. 
Things are winding to a close with the transition from the old Los Gatos Public Library to the newly constructed one. If you drive over to the area, you'll see the construction zone taping and fences still in place ("hard hat area" advisories present but people wandering about without hard hats). Inside, the lights are on and people are working hard to set the books into place for the grand opening, which will be February 11th, 2012, at 10am and with events continuing through the weekend.
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